Thom's computer though needed to be replaced. Purchasing a new Dell was reasonably painless. But transferring the data from the old computer to the new computer turned out to be one of our worst I-Hate-Botswana days. We went to a couple of electronics and computer supply stores but none of them had the external hard drive case that Thom needed. One of his IT staff gave him a lead on a store out close to the airport so at lunch one day we headed out to find it.
We found what we thought to be the store but it was basically an internet cafe with a few computer hardware pieces on display in the window. Thom called his contact who assured him that was the correct store. We found the part that Thom needed in one of the window cases and finally asked a woman if she worked there. She explained she was waiting for us to address her since she wasn't sure if we were shopping or waiting for someone else (?).
The rest of the encounter went something like this...
Thom said he wanted to buy an external hard drive case and she said, "We don't have those." Thom said, "What about that one in the window?"
The strange sales clerk said, "Oh you just want the box not an external hard drive?"
Thom said, "Yes, that's why I said hard drive 'case'."
The strange sales clerk managed to find the key to the window case (eventually) and had Thom double/triple confirm that was what he wanted and acknowledge that it was in fact just a "box". Thom also asked to purchase a UPS which she was able to add to our order. Then the difficulties really began.
The hard drive case wouldn't scan. There was no price listed in the window case or on any of the boxes in the window case. The strange sales clerk hunted around for several minutes leaving the store at one time, going to the store next door, going to the back of the shop, calling someone on the phone, but all to no avail. She finally explained that the item was not included on the price list and the manager had instructed her not to sell it until he could confirm the price. She ended by saying, "Perhaps you'll pop back in tomorrow to buy it?"
Thom was already out the door grumbling, "I hate Botswana." Which left Debra to say, "Probably not," to the strange sales clerk as she hurried to catch up with Thom.
But then there are other days that elicit the reaction, "I love this place!". One of our recent I-Love-This-Place days, was right after Easter. Both of us had been sick back and forth for several weeks but then Debra developed a cough that was keeping everybody awake at night and nyquil just wasn't helping at all. We mentioned at lunch with friends one day that what we really needed was cough syrup with codeine in it. And one of our sources of insider information told us to just go to the pharmacy. Usually that sort of stuff can be sold without a prescription around here.
So after a coughing incident at work that made everyone think Debra had developed TB after working in the program for a couple of days, we headed off to the Skylab Pharmacy next to our Braai Place (more about that in a future blog).
We went to the back of the store and Debra told the nice helpful pharmacist, "I need something for this terrible cough." And the phamacist asked, "is it a dry cough?" and then starts laying out stuff on the counter. And then he instructed, "take this pill" and Debra did and then he said "drink 2 caps of this" and she did and then he told her "chew this" and she did (right there at the counter in the pharmacy). We ended up with a week supply of cipro, a bottle of cough syrup with codeine, and too many chewable vitamin C tablets and a promise that Debra would start filling better in 4 hours. It actually took about 24 hours but Debra did finally stop coughing. Oh, and our total bill at the pharmacy -- about $12!! We love this place!
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